


The Brother-Rescue Job

by stratocumulus



Series: Itachi & the Jinchuurikis / Leverage AU [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Leverage AU, but the villages all look pretty bad abandoning their poor jinchuuriki babies, it's a sasuke rescue mission!!, some cursing but it's leverage it's basically a comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28620657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stratocumulus/pseuds/stratocumulus
Summary: Instead of joining Akatsuki, Itachi wanders, and then gets really drunk at a bar and regrets every single thing that Konoha blackops ever made him do.Then a stranger hands him an S-rank team of missing nin, and asks him wouldn't he like a bit of revenge?
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Sasuke
Series: Itachi & the Jinchuurikis / Leverage AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097597
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A they're-all-missing-nin / Leverage fusion AU  
> Rated for language and references to canon level violence  
> There is a post-massacre timeskip, but also everyone is aged up a few years too

He does it. Itachi Uchiha fucking goes and runs the whole damn clan through with a sword, runs his own parents through even, because he’s a good soldier.

He’s a good soldier of the Hidden Village of Konoha, which he can’t even set foot in ever again, because he’s a goddamn S-class rogue agent nowadays. God bless fucking Konoha.

This is the thanks he gets. His little brother left alive - somewhere. He doesn’t know. He’ll never get to see him again.

The plan was to run away and join a mercenary organization - one of the big ones making trouble. It was supposed to be a productive sort of exile. Make use of his double (triple?) agent skills and infiltrate one of Konoha’s threats on the horizon for good measure. Keep playing the good soldier even as he’s hunted down by his own former colleagues.

Things don’t go to plan.

In the aftermath of the bloodshed, Itachi drags himself to a bar (after he runs his sword through two more Konoha ANBU). He drinks until barkeep throws him out, and come to think of it this is probably where his high functioning alcoholism started. 

He says high functioning, because even drunk out of his mind right now he knows he could take down this whole goddamn establishment without so much as lifting a finger. Probably. In the morning he will have perfect recall of exactly how many drinks he’s had, how many bars he’s been to since the exile (how many days was two and a half years?), etc. 

Needless to say, the only thing Itachi’s infiltrated since his one-man clan takedown is the liquor stores of the five great nations. 

He’s deep into some shitty imported sake when pale, long haired fellow slides into the stool next to his. 

“My, if it isn’t Itachi Uchiha,” says the fellow sounding way too excited for Itachi’s liking. “The genius of that late, beleaguered clan, and storied top agent of Konoha. You’ve run so many successful missions for the village, you must have saved so many of the citizens’ lives. But when it came to your own family-”

Itachi turns and levels a truly disturbing look at the interloper of his peace and quiet. He doesn’t even need the sharingan to do it, really. 

“This is the part where I send you to hell for a thousand years, courtesy of that late, beleaguered bloodline,” he says without so much as a slur. The alcohol numbs, but does not impair. The disturber has a narrow face, angular purple accents painted down the inner corner of his eyes. Orochimaru - yet another defector. Last Itachi heard, the mad scientist had tried to start his own hidden village. 

“I need you for a job,” Orochimaru says.

Itachi snorts. Unlike most rogue shinobi who turn mercenary (or thugs, little difference), Itachi has been little more than a ghost. An alcohol guzzling ghost who occasionally genjutsus his way out of a tab as he barhops across the continent. If he had to, he’d describe it as sightseeing. He doesn’t need a job. 

“Someone stole some....research of mine, and I would like you to steal it back,” Orochimaru explains, as if Itachi had shown an ounce of interest at all.

“I know, I know, stealing it back! From a fortified hidden village with its own border patrol and special ops team. It sounds like a stupid risk. But I spent years of my life, countless dozens of human test subjects, and finally, finally we had one surviving success,” he continues to ramble. Itachi would like to tune him out, but he knows in the morning he’ll be able to recall it word for word, if he so wishes. He downs the rest of his drink and waves over another. 

Orochimaru slides over a few sheets of papers. Itachi makes the mistake of glancing down. They’re files. Profiles.

“Look at the people I’ve already hired,” Orochimaru wheedles. “Do you recognize any of these names?”

Itachi does. 

“Yeah, I’ve had missions that tangled with all of them one time or another. Gaara? You have Gaara.”

“Is there somebody whose defense is better?”

“No but. Gaara is insane.”

“Which is why I need you.”

Itachi stares at the files, and almost unwillingly pushes the papers apart with a finger to better read the details of the rest. Fucking hell.

“I’m not a thief,” Itachi says.

“Thieves I’ve got,” Orochimaru says, pleased as punch. “What I need is one honest man to watch them.”

_Honest._ Itachi wants to laugh. He hasn’t been honest since he was old enough to throw a shuriken at its target. 

“They all work alone,” Itachi says, eyeing the - frankly, impressive - roster of missing nin. “They always work alone, there’s no exceptions. And there’s no way they’re going to work for _you.”_

“Oh, they will, for 300 thousand each they will. And double that, for you, for running it,” Orochimaru says, and the way he sounds it makes it sound like he knows something he isn’t telling - yet. Itachi side-eyes him. Hard.

He waits. Orochimaru smiles.

“Itachi Uchiha, how badly do you want to screw the village that took your brother away from you?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay, check comms-” Itachi is cut off by a chipper, girlish voice in his head.

“Nuh-uh! I’ve got something better, mister!” 

That explained...a lot. Teams working with the jinchuuriki known as Fuu always looked more like a guard detail more than anything, but they moved as if they were drones responding to the queen of the hive. Guess “hivemind” wasn’t so far off the mark. 

“Oh! I heard that - I heard you! You’re in my head, y’know,” said the kyuubi jinchuuriki. The blonde hair and bright clothing screamed “not a ninja!” but the feral red eyes said  _ threatthreatthreat. _ The jinchuuriki known as Naruto was a knucklehead right up until he was a nuclear detonation, that much Itachi has seen from experience. 

“Ummm - testing! Testing!” Naruto switched to thinking incredibly loudly, scrunching up his face as if constipated while doing so. “Can you hear me??”

“Huh. You’re not as useless as you look,” Gaara said to the first jinchuuriki, ignoring the loud one. This one would require….a bit more oversight. Hell all three of them required a hell of a lot of oversight, hence Itachi running point on this hell forsaken mission. 

Fuu leveled the ichibi jinchuuriki a suspicious look.

“I don’t even know what you  _ do,” _ she said, pulling his credibility into question. Frankly it reflected more poorly on the girl than the sand demon, who though rarely employed, had a reputation for striking fear in the enemies’ hearts. His sand coffin left no trace of the dead, not even their bones. 

It didn’t take long for the four of them to rendezvous at the waterfall on the outskirts of Konoha. Not like they needed much by the way of gear or special items; jinchuuriki and kekkai genkai specialists were handy like that. 

Naruto stretched his arms up high and then bridged his fingers behind his head.

“Ha! It’s been a while since I’ve been back to Konoha,” he says cheerfully.

“You sound a lot less bitter than you would expect from someone who was left for dead as a child on these city streets,” Itachi comments. 

The bloodthirsty look on his face is completely at odds with the happy words out of Naruto’s mouth. “Bygones, bygones.”

Gaara’s interest is finally piqued; he peers over, expression unchanged as ever. 

“The village that created and shunned you still stands?” he asks, almost incredulous, though he turns away when Naruto looks at him curiously. 

“Why? What happened to your village?”

“Relax,” Itachi says preemptively. All told, it’s a relatively simple job. And they’re not here to be showy. 

They go in, they steal some research, and it botches all of Konoha’s plans to wage war on the neighboring Earth Country’s Iwakagure. Fine by Itachi. He wants no part in Konoha’s wars, and if botching one will result in some much overdue schadenfreude, so be it. Plus, the simple infiltration and retrieval mission meant that while the three demon vessels were busy, Itachi had well enough time to visit - and kidnap - his younger brother Sasuke. 

-

It went off without a hitch - technically. 

Fuu’s scale powder technique renders them functionally invisible and Itachi knew where the weak points of the border were, allowing them to enter easily. 

Once in, Naruto creates enough of a showy distraction that every figure hidden in the shadows around the secret storeroom is lured out into the open - and Gaara promptly pulverizes their bodies.

“Mother thanks you for the blood,” he says quietly through Fuu’s mind link.

“Umm, what? What??” was Fuu’s mental response. 

Itachi sighs, quickly making his way toward the Uchiha compound building he returned to every night the first years of his life. According to his intel, Sasuke hadn’t moved. He would see his brother again, hopefully not in the same room he saw him last. He had put his brother to sleep with a mental fuzz inducing genjutsu, unable to bear the expression on his face and the look in his eyes. The ensuing fight that no doubt would have followed. He would have to set a low bar for this reunion - but it would be a reunion, a long awaited one that would finally,  _ finally _ give Itachi the closure he needed to - resolve things.

_ Sasuke, have you been safe these few years? Was it all worth it? _

Itachi touches down at the compound and immediately knows something’s wrong. There are no chakra signatures nearby, nothing. The evidence in front of his eyes is even clearer; no one’s been home for days. He narrows his eyes and leaps back atop the roof. Was his intelligence mistaken? Compromised? He heads for the missions desk to confirm his suspicions.

His fingers are gripping the papers tightly enough to crease, nearly rip, when Naruto’s voice comes in, shaky with - something - it’s hard to tell if it’s nervousness or rage.

“Uh, chief, we’ve got a problem,” he says. 

_ “What?”  _ Itachi responds irritably. Sasuke has been sent out of the village on a long term mission. A  _ month _ ago. Orochimaru would have known this when he offered Itachi the job. When he dangled the prospect of a reunion in front of him. When he let Itachi go off and plan for whether such a reunion would be possible. He’d fucking set him up.

“Well for starters,” Fuu responds this time. “It’s not a file. It’s, well.”

“It’s a kid,” Naruto finishes for her.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s Itachi’s fault.

He knows better. He should have known better. 

It was stupid, frankly, to think that after drinking himself into a stupor and with minimal prep he would perform as well as he did when he was ANBU and at the top of his game. 

Now he and three ticking time bombs are fleeing Konoha at top speed, bound and sealed pre-teen in tow. Itachi has no idea what the kid’s deal is, and there was no time to check. He’s not even certain this is the “research” Orochimaru mentioned, though it’s very likely, as the hellspawn was known to have conducted living human experiments, subjects not necessarily willing. Besides, the kyuubi jinchuuriki insisted they take him, and Itachi’s not about to fight one of those.

“Wait, where are we going?” Fuu asks.

“The meeting point,” Itachi says, curt. The neutral ground, middle-of-nowhere plain they had picked out to confer with Orochimaru after the fact. “You want to get paid, don’t you?”

He ignores the look Naruto shoots him. Perhaps he’ll refuse to give up the kid. Well, it’s Orochimaru’s funeral. Though Itachi would rather like to get to him first, at this point.

“Ehh? Don’t we have another day?” Fuu whines, though Itachi’s not sure why, seeing as she’s breezing along with goddamn  _ wings _ . Gaara, sitting monk-like on a cloud of sand, glances over at Naruto.

“We wouldn’t have had to rush the mission if you had kept to bodily distractions,” he says, but factually, rather than accusing. Naruto had all but blown up the stone faces of Konoha’s Hokage, for no discernable reason.

“You’re welcome!” Naruto says. “You should liven up a bit, you know! Heh, this is probably the easiest 300k I’ve ever made, don’t tell me it’s not the same for you guys.”

Itachi wonders whether he should keep quiet about his own payout figure.

-

They get to the meeting point quickly enough, which is when it all goes to hell. 

“Hm? There’s no one here,” Naruto says, pointing out the obvious. 

It’s Itachi’s fault. Had he been sober, had he been alert - 

They wouldn’t be standing on a massive seal about to fucking activate. 

It’s a big one, large enough, deep enough that flight doesn’t help, that it spans the width of the valley trapping them inside the bowl between the mountains - or it would have, had Naruto not sent a clone of himself and one doubling for the kid, without ever alerting the rest of the team.

_ Fuck. _

The other two tailed beasts are down in an instant, strange dark chains wrapped around them rendering them useless, seeming to siphon their chakra right out of them at some speed. Itachi, a mere beast-less shinobi, no vessel at all, falls to more ordinary means, but falls all the same. 

A masked and cloaked shinobi - not Orochimaru himself - drops down to retrieve the child, only for Naruto’s henge to reveal him as a clone, and then poof away along with the other body double, presumably because all the chakra seated in the clone was siphoned out already.

“Shit,” the masked menace says, fleeing in the blink of an eye. 

Itachi loses consciousness.

-

He wakes to the sound of sand falling like rain.

When Itachi opens his eyes the sight is a lot less soothing than the sound. 

Gaara has turned half beast, turning his sand on the other two tailed-beast vessels, voice gravely and  _ pissed. _

“Which one of you betrayed me?” he growls.

“What! How do we know it wasn’t you!” Naruto shouts, promptly escalating the situation into an all out fight, red chakra oozing out as Fuu takes flight, sending poisonous webs down on the other fighting pair. “I just saved your ass you know!! You all should be bowing and scraping and  _ thanking me!!” _

Itachi feels a million years old and just as exhausted. 

“It was a trap,” he says, though, really, he thinks he shouldn’t even need to say it. The fighting doesn’t stop. “Hey!”

He leaps back to a safe distance, finally noticing that the group of them have been moved to a shadowy, forest-y area away from the valley. The kid is still bound and sealed and propped up against a tree. 

Three half-feral beasts turn on him, and Itachi wonders whether he should just let them wreak their havoc. No, if he was going to do that it would’ve been better to do so while they were still within Konoha borders.

“Was it you?” Gaara growls at him, and Itachi tries to muster up the most unimpressed look he can manage. There’s an awfully tense stalemate.

“Ch.” Naruto is the first one to calm down, and to Itachi’s surprise, his eyes are blue. He’d assumed the red, slit-pupil eyes were just one of jinchuuriki traits, like the whiskers on his cheeks that haven’t gone away, or the dark circles around Gaara’s eyes, and Fuu’s iridescent orange irises. He takes a cross-legged seat on the ground with a graceless thump, near the tied-up kid, who he sends a sympathetic look. The other two seem to take this as a call for cease-fire, and calm themselves down; Fuu just as quickly, but Gaara with a bit of labored breathing and a few moments longer.

“So, clearly, this was a trap,” Itachi reiterates. 

Fuu flops over. “So we’re not getting paid!” she says, despondent.

Naruto reached out and ungags their unintended prisoner.

“Hey, kid, I’m the Nine Tails Jinchuuriki, Naruto. Who are you?”

The kid has wide, dark eyes, that startle at his question, and he looks down, long brown hair falling into his face.

“I don’t know,” he says. They all take notice at that, and look over at him.

“I presume you’re part of the ‘experiment’ that Orochimaru sent us to recover,” Itachi prompts. The kid scrunches up his face, it’s sad looking.

“I think I’ve heard that name before. It’s hard to tell,” he says. The second part’s a mumble.

“Pasty dude, looks like a snake, ring any bells?” Naruto asks. There’s some recognition. The kid hazards a nod. 

“Bastard,” Naruto mumbles. Even Gaara looks a smidge sympathetic.

“What sort of experiment?” he asks.

Smart kid, he hesitates, looking back and forth between the three monsters and washed up assassin, wondering whether he should tell. 

“He was - trying to revive the Wood Style. All the other experiments failed. The other children died. Except me. Except - he - he ruled me a failure too.”

Itachi can feel the murderous intent rise across all three of his temporary charges. He’s surprised to find that they’re all bleeding hearts.

“Well, you don’t have to worry,” Naruto says emphatically, “he’s not going to get to you anymore.”

“What are you going to do, just take him?” Fuu asks, sitting up. 

“Well, yeah! Why not! You wanna come with me kid? I know all the best ramen stands on the continent, believe it! We’ll have so much fun!” 

The kid just stares. “You’ll...be my friend?” he asks, and of all the things in the world, that seems to be the three jinchuuriki’s trigger word.

The silent tension is so thick you could choke on it, Itachi thinks. Naruto has this kind of frozen smile on his face as if the single word has dredged up years of trauma, Fuu is stone-still depressed as if a dark cloud has descended from heaven just to ruin her day personally, and Gaara looks like he’s about to throw up.

“Y-yeah!” Naruto finally says, looking as if he’s surprised even himself. He fidgets. “Never really had friends before.”

“Weapons don’t get to have friends,” Gaara adds softly, sounding as if he’s quoting something he’s heard countless times. 

Fuu laughs, high and just a little hysterical, for the length of a hiccup. 

“I used to say I would make a hundred friends,” she blurts out, before catching herself. Seeing everyone’s eyes on her, waiting, she continues. “Because I was told I was born to protect my village, you see?”

They all look like they can relate, except the rescued, nameless kid, who still just looks lost and dazed.

“But our village leader - because I came from Hidden Waterfall, too small to have a Kage - said that being a jinchuuriki made me strong, but having friends would make me ever stronger! And he said he believed that one day I would have a hundred friends!” Her tone falters a bit. “I believed it too! But then, no one wanted to be my friend.”

“Eventually, when our village was attacked, and it became clear we were losing… they didn’t even hesitate to trade me to the enemy in exchange for ending the war.”

Naruto is scrubbing at his face with his hands, and it’s hard to tell what his expression is, but he seems to take Fuu’s sharing as an invitation to spill personal details as well.

“No one told me I was a jinchuuriki, I had to find out on my own,” he says. “Always wondered why everyone in the village hated me, why I was all alone, with no parents and no one who wanted me, why people would glare and hurt me even though I hadn’t done anything bad at all.”

“Well I finally found out when one teacher I thought was actually being kind to me told me he’d lied, and that I was really just the fox demon that tore apart the village a few years ago. I believed him. Stupid huh? The attack happened on my birthday after all.”

He looks a little sheepish, and then makes a disgruntled pout.

“Anyway I got super upset and kinda lost control and ended up fighting my way out. Before I knew it I’d left the village. Thought I’d have it better elsewhere, but turns out there isn’t a village in the world that likes loud children who have no one to take them in! And eventually I learned that  _ I _ wasn’t the kyuubi, it was sealed  _ inside _ me. And then I learned how to use it, you know?”

When Naruto finishes, he and Fuu look over at Gaara, who looks at nothing in particular. The kid looks over too. The silence is long enough that Itachi thinks perhaps he’s not going to share, and the other two must think so too as they open their mouths to prompt him, but Gaara beats them to the chase.

“I killed my uncle.”

The silence is long enough that Itachi thinks one of them is about to ask “that’s it?” before more is forthcoming.

“It was an accident. He was sent to assassinate me, on my father’s orders.”

Another pause.

“I was five. He’d been my caretaker up until then.”

“With his dying breath, he told me he hated me for killing his sister, my mother, who died in childbirth. He told me my mother hated me, hated that she was made to bear a demon child. She named me Gaara as a curse; no one would ever love me, and I would only love myself.”

“It’s why everyone in my village reviled me. I stopped trying to reach out, after that.”

“Sometimes I hear Mother in my head. She screams for blood. She sated it with an entire sector of Suna before we left, in exchange for my denying her for years before it.”

Well, shit. It looks like childhood trauma wasn’t exactly unique to Itachi, was it? 

As if on cue, they all turn their big, unblinking eyes on him.

“What?”

“We all shared our sad backstories,” Naruto says.

“You have to share yours too,” Gaara says in a tone of finality. 

“It’s your turn!” Fuu adds.

So he describes the Uchiha massacre, how the village ordained it as a means of keeping peace, and thought it best to ask a single teenage member of that very family they planned to exterminate to do the deed. In a particularly maudlin moment, he even tells them about the little brother he couldn’t bring himself to kill, who he had hoped he would be able to see again on his sickening return to Konoha.

“Wow,” Fuu says, looking a little disgusted. 

“That’s…” Naruto is at a loss for words.

“That’s kind of fucked up,” Gaara sums up plainly. 

“Isn’t it,” Itachi says with a sigh. Who knew sharing childhood trauma stories was so exhausting. “Well, what are we going to do now?”

“I guess...I guess we’ll go our separate ways,” Fuu says. 

“It’s what makes sense,” Gaara says. 

“The kid and I’ll go north,” Naruto says. “The rest of you guys can go the other directions.” 

“Wait,” Itachi says, like an  _ idiot. _ “Are you really satisfied to leave it like this? Just run off with your tails between your legs?”

Not the smartest thing to say to a group of overpowered jinchuuriki. Not a smart thing to say at all. They all level him incredibly unimpressed looks.

“What are you suggesting?” Naruto asks, a challenge in his tone but mischief in his eyes.

Itachi turns his gaze heavenward and thinks, what does he have to lose at this point?

“I say we pay Orochimaru back. We trap him, and deliver his head to Konoha on a silver platter. And then we steal back my brother.”

They consider his suggestion fairly mildly, considering he’d just insulted all of them a moment before.

“So like, a follow up job,” Fuu says.

“But there is no client,” Gaara says.

“It’s a rescue mission!!” Naruto says, jumping to his feet, evidently enthused at the idea. He points to Itachi, as if Itachi weren’t sitting right there. “We’re going to rescue this guy’s brother!!”

Kidnapping was a more accurate term, technically, but Itachi wasn’t going to argue the point. 

  
“A mission,” Gaara repeats slowly, turning the word over in his mouth. “So we would be….teammates?”

They all perk up at that, and look to each other with some sense of bright revelation.

“I’ve never had a team before!” Fuu said.

“Yeah!” Naruto pumps his fist. “Team Jinchuuriki! And nameless kid! And sad old man Uchiha!”

“That’s a long team name,” Gaara says, still giving it due consideration. “But I accept. I would like to have teammates.”

“Hey. Hey! Let’s be more than teammates, let’s be friends!” Fuu declares, and it all goes downhill from there, really, the discussion descending into a cacophony of team name suggestions and whether they would be each other’s friends and what that would entail, and Itachi can tell it will take a little while before they’re ready to talk gameplan.

Naruto turns to their kidnapped ward and pokes at the seals binding him, evidently a learned seal master, on his way to figuring out a safe way to release him. “Hey kid, I can’t keep calling you kid, so we need something to call you. Do you have a name you like?”

The kid hesitates, then shakes his head. Naruto seems to take this as an invitation to name him.

“Hm, well, you have a really plain face, so a really plain name would suit you,” Naruto decides without an ounce of malice. “How about Yamato! Yamato’s a pretty plain name, you know!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Iruka managed to run after his parents in this au, meaning he died the night of the kyuubi attack too, and thus never met Naruto.


	4. Chapter 4

“Alright,” Itachi says, getting to his feet. “Let’s go get the Copy-nin.”

“What’s a copynin?” Naruto asks. 

-

The S-class Copy-nin happens to be playing the starring role in a lurid romantic comedy play put on by a traveling theater troupe, and he’s….surprisingly awful. Huh. Itachi remembers his senpai being a master infiltrator, adept at playing any role at the drop of a hat and charming the most suspicious mark into giving away their secrets. He could sell ice to a Snow County citizen. 

Team Jinchuuriki, sitting in the back row, seem slightly nauseated at his overacted performance.

“Love! Love is the most important thing to me,” Kakashi says in a stilted, badly projected voice, arms gesturing so wildly he nearly falls over. The only thing that hasn’t changed about him, from the senpai Itachi remembers, is that his scarf doubles as a mask, obstructing the lower half of his face.

“He’s very awful,” Gaara says.

“Is he injured? In the head?” Fuu asks.

“Seriously, this is the worst actor I have ever seen,” Naruto says, elbowing Itachi in the ribs. “What’s he got, like some super special kekkai genkai or something? Because he’s got no infiltration skills whatsoever. He can’t act! How’re we supposed to fool Orochimaru with a guy who can’t act!” 

Itachi sighs.

-

“I vote no,” Gaara says, arms crossed, already possessive of his new team and wary of outsiders. 

“Orochimaru will be expecting us. We need a fresh face,” Itachi explains for the hundredth time. He knocks on the dressing room door of Kakashi Hatake, stagename Sukea, and the door flies open, senpai’s trademark mask back on his face, twirling black marker in his hand. 

“Hello! Are you here for an autogra- oh it’s you.”

“Wonderful performance, senpai,” Itachi says trying for his old, small but kindly respectful smile. He can’t quite muster it, as if he’s forgotten how exactly one smiles.

Kakashi manages to outdo him in that regard, giving him a perfectly fake smile.

“My number one fan,” he says. Then he notices the group of misfits looming behind Itachi, and opens the door wider, beckoning them in. “What? All of you want autographs? Anything for my lovely fans. Come in, come in.”

-

Kakashi listens without interruption as the colorful trio (well, duo, with Gaara bluntly interjecting for clarification from time to time) recount their exploits from their last “mission.”

“This isn’t really something that interests me, to be frank,” Kakashi says, sounding incredibly put-upon. He’s about to come up with one of his famously lame excuses but Itachi interjects, cutting to the heart of it.

“They took Sasuke into Root,” Itachi says. It’s practically a plea. And saying it out loud somehow changes everything. 

It’s as if he’s made up his mind to finally, finally do something, in response to the bloodshed on his hands and the mutilated bond between Itachi and his last living relation. He throws off his self-pity and resignation and admits to himself that he wants justice served. His mission to slaughter his clan in order to keep the peace within the village was not justice. And now the corrupted system that had chewed up him and spit him out had his brother. 

Itachi is far too capable and wronged to let this go. 

All eyes in the room turn on him. He hadn’t told them that at their little sharathon earlier, and they say as much.

“You didn’t tell us they  _ took _ your brother,” Fuu says.

“What is Root?” Gaara asks. 

“Sasuke Uchiha…” Naruto says. “I think I remember him. He was a year below me in the academy, maybe.”

Kakashi gives Itachi a long, sad look that the distracted jinchuuriki can’t see, then turns nonchalant as he regains their attention.

“Hmmm, Orochimaru, huh?” Kakashi says in that familiar, lazy tone of his, leaning back in his chair, tapping a rolled up script against his chin. The Jinchuuriki Three (and Yamato) are crammed together on Kakashi’s small, patent leather couch (Itachi wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. He knows senpai. He doesn’t want to know what that couch has seen. Or touched.) and Itachi leans against the wall beside it.

“Bit of a mad scientist character, from what I remember. Was working on some immortality nonsense last I saw him, though why in heavens name anyone would want such a thing I don’t know. Said something about wanting more time to read his dusty scrolls, I think,” Kakashi muses, before turning his one uncovered eye onto Yamato, tone shifting in a single moment.

“We’ll have to use ‘Yamato’ as bait,” he declares. 

Itachi winces internally; he should have warned someone something about tact. Yamato shrinks in on himself, and Naruto is defensive immediately. That much he expected; that Fuu and Gaara glare at Kakashi with an air of protective camaraderie is a little less expected. 

-

They move the meeting to somewhere a bit more secluded than an actor’s dressing room, meaning they’re out in the wilderness again.

Kakashi is scrutinizing Yamato as Naruto hovers.

“He was just sitting in a cell! All alone! And restrained, you know!” Naruto argues, like he’s some sort of over-enthused defense attorney. “Like he was some sort of criminal, even though he was the one who got kidnapped and experimented on. He’s not going to go back to that village!”

“So, have you tried to use the Wood Style?” Kakashi asks, ignoring Naruto’s passionate defense.

Yamato shakes his head. “The room they kept me in-“

“Was COVERED in ALL KINDS of chakra binding seals!!” Naruto interjects. “That’s inhumane!”

“Well, try it out.”

“But-“

“Orochimaru declared you a failure but Danzo wouldn’t have kept you around if he thought so. And I doubt Orochimaru would go through such lengths to retrieve you if you were only a witness and example to his crimes. He must have some reason to suspect you weren’t as much of a failure as he initially thought,” Kakashi tells him gently, as Yamato turns over the earth-shattering news in his head.

“Stop talking about him like he’s an experiment!!” Naruto glares at Kakashi, eyes red again. “He’s a person!” 

Kakashi finally turns a speculative eye on Naruto, and after a moment nods. 

“You’re right.” He turns to Yamato. “I apologize.”

Kakashi has his bland smile on again, and Naruto fumes at the insincerity that he must know is just an act. 

-

It takes a bit of coaching (theory courtesy of Kakashi, and loud unhelpful onomatopoeic explanations courtesy of Naruto), but Yamato manages it. He has Wood Style after all, though his ninjutsu level in general leaves much to be desired, as he’s spent most of his life in a lab or a cell. 

He manages to created a crooked looking wooden fence thing, and the jinchuurikis ooh and ahh over their new ward, leaving Yamato feeling a little dazed. 

“Anyway, the plan is,”

“Kakashi, you’ll approach Orochimaru,” Itachi says. 

“Is everyone going to interrupt me today?” Kakashi says.

“You can tell him I dropped a kid off in your lap to deal with his curse mark. It’s uncharacteristic for me, but Orochimaru doesn’t know me well, and you can tell him how angry and distracted I was to find Sasuke out of town. His counterintelligence on that front shows he knew I would be looking for my brother. Lead him to think I’ve run off to Cloud chasing him.”

-

“And that’s how it is,” Kakashi says. He and Orochimaru both wear polite, insincere smiles as they discuss business seated outside a tea shop.

“Well, I don’t care either way, but I figured if you went through so much trouble to secure the kid he must be worth something to you,” Kakashi says.

“And you happen to be in the business of returning lost items nowadays are you?” Orochimaru asks.

“I figured I’d send him your way, for a price,” Kakashi says.

“Acting gig not working out?” Orochimaru snorts. “Fine, how much?”

“Actually, I was thinking a favor…”

Orochimaru’s eyes narrow.

“Nothing much, just, amnesty, I guess you could call it?” Kakashi says. “Like you said, the life of a traveling theater member is a tough one, and I’d rather like to settle down. To do that, I’d need to settle things with the Hidden Village of Konoha, wouldn’t want mercenaries ruining opening night once I open my own theater, and all that.”

Orochimaru does not look pleased with the prospect.

“I would have to pull a lot of strings, and cash in a lot of favors,” he says.

“Well whatever this kid is, he’s worth it, right?” 

-

_ “Orochimaru will have to go to Danzo in order to cash in those favors,” Kakashi explains. “He’s the only one high enough, with enough pull, to get the Hokage to grant me a pardon on that. _

_ “What’d you do?” Fuu asks. _

_ “Not much. Skipped town. Might’ve taken out a few dozen ANBU on the way.” Kakashi says. _

_ “Who is Danzo?” Gaara asks. _

_ “He runs Root, the black ops of the black ops. Shadow organization in the pit beneath Konoha village. Handles all the dirty operations that even the Hokage isn’t privy to. He’s the bastard who ordered my cute kohai here to massacre the Uchihas,” Kakashi says, using that term Itachi has so tried to ignore. But it is what it is: a massacre.  _

_ “I hate him already,” Fuu says, nodding. _

_ “I do as well,” Gaara says, quick to show solidarity. _

_ “And he supplied the child experiments right? What a despicable bastard,” Naruto adds.  _

_ “Danzo and Orochimaru have enough dirty laundry between them that Danzo won’t want Orochimaru spilling any secrets, regardless of his credibility. He’s a cagey bastard. In fact, all of Root agents have a curse mark that prevents them from defecting, or anything to expose Danzo and Root. Itachi and I managed to get out early, before then,” Kakashi says. _

_   
_ _ Itachi is frustrated at the idea that his brother might be coerced into the missions he’s taken since Itachi left town. He doesn’t know what’s worse - Sasuke being forced, or Sasuke being brainwashed. This is the village he killed for? _

_ “What kind of mark is it?” Naruto asks. _

_ “Is it like this?” Yamato, of all people, speaks up, turning to show a mark on the back of his shoulder. _

_ “What! Why didn’t you say anything,” Naruto says, grabbing his collar to get a better look. “I can fix it for you, you know.” _

_ Kakashi looks surprised at that. “No, it’s imprinted right on your tongue, nerves going back into the brain. Crude work, brutal. Frankly the easiest way to get rid of it, for every Root agent, would be to kill danzo. _

_ “So we’ll kill Danzo,” Gaara says, looking satisfied with the conclusion. _

_ “Exactly,” Kakashi says. _

_ “If we can figure out where orochimaru and danzo are meeting we can intercept them there. Danzo won’t chance meeting inside konoha walls so we’ll have our chance without interference,” Itachi says. _

_ “He’ll still have guards,” Kakashi says. The jinchuuriki snort at that. _

_ “Even if they were meeting in the most fortified damn place in konoha it’d be no match for the three of us,” Naruto says, giving him a sour look. _

_ Kakashi glances at itachi, who is loath to meet his eyes. It’s not like he’s particularly fond of the village, not at this point but. There are innocents. People who shouldn’t be involved. There’s no need for a rampage. _

_ “Right,” Kakashi says, as if Itachi’s expression somehow confirms something along those lines. “But this way’s cleaner, see! And we might even find Orochimaru’s hideout. Who knows how many other Yamatos he’s hiding!” _

_ The prospect of that seems to make the jinchuuriki quite angry. _

-

“Your bounty is no small figure, though I suppose part of that is due to that eye of yours. I’d be happy to take it off your hands, if you’d like,” Orochimaru says.

“Orochimaru, don’t joke about an actor’s good looks like that.”

“In fact, you might as well add me to the list of those bounty hunters; now that I know you have my research, what’s to keep me from coming after you myself?”

_ “AHH. Your plan FAILED. ALREADY,” Naruto shouts through the mind link. _

_ “Let’s go back to Konoha,” Gaara adds to the mental cacophony. “I’ll crush Danzo with my sand.” _

“Fine, don’t help me. I’ll just bring him to the Hokage myself in good faith. Who knows, maybe he’ll be so grateful to discover the Wood Style user that he’ll grant me that pardon after all.”

“He told you that,” Orochimaru says, referring to his experiment.

“Well, I have ways of making someone talk, come on, we both know that.”

Orochimaru huffs, frustrated.

“Fine. Give me a few days,” he says.


	5. Chapter 5

Orochimaru contacts Danzo, not to cut a deal, but to warn him off.

“Who the hell do they think I am, just some dog they can lead around?” he scoffs, penning a coded missive and handing it off to his trusty spy Kabuto to deliver. “They’re going to find out exactly how wrong they are.”

Though, Danzo isn’t stupid enough to go sneaking out of Konoha’s safe walls to talk to a former conspirator alone either. He’s not some loose end to be tied up. No, he makes Orochimaru come to Konoha, where he’s practically wanted for treason. It was just a simple matter of swapping out one of the border patrols with his own man, who would conveniently look the other way for a period of time, letting Orochimaru enter through the old Root passageways he’s vaguely familiar with. 

He bumps into a new agent on the way, and Danzo gives him a displeased look. The young shinobi shrinks in on himself just a tad, and the older one who had been walking him through the hallways pushes him forward after reminding/forcing him to bow. 

Danzo waits until their footsteps have receded, and opens the door to the designated meeting room. It’s a safe location, near the exit. Easy for Orochimaru to get in and out. Easy to collapse on him after Danzo makes an escape if things go south. No need to take unnecessary risk. 

“Well?” Danzo asks. Orochimaru is already in the room, wearing that annoying look on his face. Damn egoist. 

“It seems like you managed to salvage a piece of my experiment grafting Hashirama cells to recreate the Wood Style, and you decided to keep me out of it,” Orochimaru says. “Keeping the subject from the research we _both_ worked on to yourself all these years.”

Ah. That’s what this is about. Danzo knew it might come up sooner or later, after the ridiculously high profile break-in Konoha just suffered recently. Not that Danzo wasn’t able to gain some advantage from that as well. With the ANBU ranks decimated, Danzo has been able to make the Hokage see that a more specialized division is necessary. It’s a step towards legitimizing Root.

“So that retrieval mission _was_ you. You’ve just about admitted to attacking Konoha - with its own tailed beast jinchuuriki, if my information is correct. I’m sure you know how Konoha citizens feel about the kyuubi,” Danzo says. 

“Hm, yes, so you definitely won’t want me to tie you to this one,” Orochimaru says. “Though I’m here to warn you, I don’t have the subject either. The Sharingan Kakashi threatened to turn him over to my old teacher, the Sandaime. You would do well to...intercept any such deliveries, and take care of the man too, hm? It would be in both our interests.”

Danzo narrows his one good eye. Take Kakashi out? It would be a challenge, seeing as Konoha’s deadliest hadn’t managed to do so the first time. He wasn’t noted present at the first attack, which the subject had switched hands. Orochimaru didn’t expect the jinchuuriki and its cohorts, or Itachi Uchiha to return for this then. 

-

That’s because moment Danzo sets foot in the meeting room, Itachi leaves Kakashi to handle things and races off as fast as he’s ever moved.

_Sasuke. Wait for me._

His intel isn’t wrong this time. Sasuke is in Konoha. Sasuke is _here._

Not in these underground Root facilities, and Itachi has his old surveillance room to thank for this info. No, Sasuke is in that old, abandoned Uchiha compound. Itachi touches down, feeling like a ghost in this old complex once again. This is the worst place to have a reunion.

He doesn’t get far before his brother senses him. 

That boyish face has hardened in his absence. Sasuke is growing up. Itachi can’t bring him to think of Sasuke as an adult, still, but knows that since he left him to fend for himself in this hell forsaken town where men like Danzo pull the strings, his teenage brother’s hands have probably become bloodsoaked.

“You have some nerve, showing your face here,” Sasuke says. 

All he wants to do is hug his little brother, and then whisk him off somewhere far, far away from here. There are villages with good dango and lots of anonymity and merchants who don’t care even if you’re clearly a wanted man so long as you don’t start any fights and pay your tab. Who said Uchihas needed to stay in Konoha anyway?

Sasuke launches himself at his brother - his sword skills have improved - before Itachi can make this winning speech and convince his brother to defect. 

“Brother,” he says instead - and then he _shows him_.

He shows him his fondest memories; Itachi holding Sasuke for the first time, those early, idyllic years when Itachi himself hadn’t really understood what it meant to be a “shinobi.”

His heartwarming interlude is interrupted with a swift kick and harsh reality as the illusion shatters.

“You can’t distract me with a parlor trick like that,” Sasuke says with a bitter, ugly laugh.

“Sasuke, listen-” Itachi tries.

“There is nothing I want to say to you, and there is nothing I need to hear from you,” Sasuke says. “All I want is your death, you _traitor.”_

Sasuke activates his sharingan and Itachi is pained to see how evolved it is. Less than his own, however, and parrying another blow he forces Sasuke into an illusion again - showing him his memories.

Not of Sasuke this time, but ANBU. Danzo. The Sandaime.

The Uchiha clan meetings, and planning of a coup.

Itachi’s orders. 

A bead of sweat makes its way down Sasuke’s temple. 

They revisit the night of the massacre again - Sasuke has seen this before - but this time the point of view is different.

Itachi releases the illusion, and Sasuke falls to his knees, hard of breath.

“Liar,” Sasuke says, but it comes out shaky. He tries to draw breath without dry heaving. 

“You made that up,” Sasuke accuses, but he knows it’s the truth.

“Sasuke, I’m so sorry.” 

“How could you-” Sasuke sucks in breath, unable to finish his accusation. It could be any number of things. How could you be such a gullible fool, how could you kill our parents, how could you murder our entire clan, how could you do that in front of me, how could you let me see that.

“How could you just _leave me?”_

Sasuke was a tough boy; he was a horrible crybaby as an infant, but he tried his darnedest to be tough once he was old enough to speak and really Itachi can’t remember him once crying. But the tears come now, giant drops accompanied by choking sobs, and Itachi would give anything to fix it, his soul included, if he had one at all.

“I’m so sorry, Sasuke.”

“You left me _all alone.”_

“I’m so sorry.”

“You just _left.”_ Itachi has tried for an awkward approximation of a hug, but the swords in the way make it a little difficult. When Sasuke’s fingers on his arms tighten to dig into the flesh he thinks perhaps Sasuke’s tears are angry tears, not cathartic reunion tears after all. But it turns out the anger is not directed at him-

“Danzo-” Sasuke starts, before he chokes on the name.

“Is confessing all of his sins right now,” Itachi says quietly. He’d rather not talk about Danzo, he’d rather make his convincing argument that they leave town. “He’s speaking directly to the Hokage, and there’s no way he is getting off scot free this time.”

“Confessing?” Sasuke scoffs. “Why would he?”

Itachi reluctantly releases Sasuke so he can use his hands to form the seal, and says _“Release.”_

-

Danzo staggers backwards, looking around. He’s in same meeting room, but the man standing before him is decidedly _not_ Orochimaru. 

No that’s - Kakashi Hatake, former ANBU, deserter, rogue sharingan-bearing ninja.

“What-”

And behind the Copy-nin is Hiruzen Sarutobi, clad in his Hokage robes, looking very grim indeed.

An illusion? No...he looks around. The illusion was what came before - Orochimaru - except he was never here.

“When-?”

“When did the genjutsu start?” Kakashi asks. “Well, that’d be before you even came into the room.”

Danzo swallows, the memory of the nondescript ninja he bumped into on his way in rising like bile in the back of his throat. 

Hiruzen knows….not everything, but too much. 

“Huh. Well, you made a mistake forcing me to confess here. You do know where we are, don’t you?” Danzo says. “I could have a dozen agents at my back in a moment.” And he has the sharingan as a last resort as well.

“My, my, you make it sound like we don’t even have a plan,” Kakashi says. “We’re professionals.”

At that, a boy he hadn’t even noticed steps out from behind Kakashi, and weaves a sign for a jutsu he shouldn’t even be able to use - and Danzo is promptly separated from the rest of the room by a newly formed wooden cell. Hiruzen steps forward to apply a seal on the new prison to ensure Danzo can’t use either force or chakra, like a cherry on top. 

-

For Orochimaru’s part, he’s intercepted by a huge wave of chakra the moment he gets near the border.

A trap by Danzo, then? He had even odds on the man getting scared - Danzo was always paranoid - and preemptively turning against him. He was stupid to think he could actually _defeat_ Orochimaru though, no matter how many brainwashed bloodline child soldiers he napped for his own use.

All you got when you kicked the hornet’s nest was a world of hurt.

Orochimaru would be sending some _very_ interesting evidence the Hokage’s way _very_ soon.

-

“AHH THIS SUCKS! HE’S RIGHT THERE! Are you sure we can’t just. Beat him up now?” Naruto scowls from his hidden position not far from where Orochimaru is fast making his way away from Konoha, cluttering the mind link as usual. 

“Is there volume control on this thing?” Kakashi asks.

“We need to let him go so we can follow him back to his hideout,” Itachi explains yet again. 

“All good! He’s shown no sign of noticing my li’l critters at all,” Fuu chirps. “I’ve bugged him. Hah.”

“And then we need to wait until he double-crosses Danzo, thinking Danzo double-crossed him,” Itachi says. “They both would have prepared fail-safes against each other, leaking precisely the information the other party was afraid they would leak if one ever turned on the other.”

“THIS IS TOO MUCH! THE MIND GAMES ARE TOO MUCH!” Naruto cuts him off, waving off the explanations he’s already heard. “I thought there’d be a lot more punching when I signed up for this, you know!”

“There’ll be plenty of punching once Orochimaru’s set off his insurance policy against Danzo. Then we can destroy his hideout, hell, destroy him. Go wild,” Itachi says. “It’s part of the plan.”

“I look forward to this part of the plan,” Gaara adds helpfully.

And they do, indeed, go wild. What was once an extensive underground labyrinth of a bunker is reduced to a smoking crater - but not before Itachi obtains a list of locations to Orochimaru’s other hideouts. The team is disgusted but not surprised to find that a number of them are prisons hosting other unwilling human experiments, and over the course of the next few days traverse the lands to destroy the hideouts and/or set the prisoners free.

Occasionally there are a couple of shinobi who give a good fight, but really, they’re no match for three angry jinchuuriki (and occasionally a former assassin or two or three with a lot of pent up angst). Once felled, things tend to go quickly. The prisoners are all too happy to escape, and once free, the jailers don’t exactly want to be around for that. 

“What about Danzo?” Gaara asks, almost a little eager, even though Itachi _knows_ his bloodlust more than sated from the last hideout-destroying trip. It reminds Itachi of a particularly gluttonous cat he used to feed - mean and scarred but more than ready to fight you for treats.

“Danzo is mine,” snarls Sasuke, their new honorary member of a sort. 

Danzo is bound and blindfolded, sitting in a dark, damp cell awaiting what should be the most complicated trial in Konoha history. The elders don’t want to touch the case, want all new evidence obtained burned out of Konoha’s history. But it’s far too much; even just the tip of the iceberg of Danzo’s sins, the little bit that’s already leaked to clan and council members, are damning enough. As much as they’d like, they cannot do nothing.

So in a way, Sasuke is doing them a favor, when he drops in at the dead of night, knocks out the meager guard detail who are on duty for appearance’s sake more than anything, and pays Danzo a visit. 

He’d like to draw this out, with plenty of torture and screaming, but he’ll have to settle for a trick of that. 

He sinks a blade into the socket that should contain the sharingan and rips the other half off, sending Danzo into a hellish nightmare that lasts a second for Sasuke and eons for Danzo. Then he slides his blade into his heart, quick, and leaves the body to burn on the floor of the cell while Sasuke makes his getaway.

-

“You know, you look better,” Fuu says. Itachi looks over at her, but doesn’t respond. “Than when we started,” she elaborates needlessly. He doesn’t say anything, so she shrugs, and flits off to confer with the other two jinchuuriki.

The team’s grown, though the team-up likely won’t be permanent, Itachi thinks. They’re on their way to the last known hideout Orochimaru held, an island that is relatively out of the way. After that, they technically have no reason to stay together, any of them. 

Still, it’s been...nice. Mostly because he has his brother again, but all of it, the cathartic blowing up of mad scientist lairs and supervillain bases, has been…..nice. 

-

-

  
  


The trio of jinchuuriki break off a little ahead of the group to converse among themselves.

Fuu glances at Gaara apprehensively, then at Naruto, who doesn’t understand what she is trying to say sans mind link, and then back at Gaara. She takes a breath.

“Um. Gaara. I’m not sure how to say this….but I don’t think that voice in your head is your mom.”

Gaara furrows his brow-less brows in frowny confusion. “Explain.”

“The bijuu? Like...they live inside us, right? So we can talk to them sometimes,” Fuu starts slowly.

Naruto nods, catching on. “The kyuubi is a fox in a prison inside me,” he says.

Gaara is still confused. “And?”

“So it’s probably the voice of the ichibi - sorry, I don’t know its name - I have the nanabi, and its name is Chomei.”

“Sounds fake but okay….”’

“Wait.” Naruto looks back and forth between the other two, blinking rapidly. “They have names?”

He shakes the temporary epiphany off. “I mean, if he’s annoying, can’t you just tune him out? I don’t talk to the kyuubi unless I really need to.”

If anything, Gaara’s expression shows the conversation has only confused him further. “It screams?”

“Screams??” Naruto asks.

“At all hours,” Gaara confirms, to his new friends’ great consternation. “I haven’t slept in years.”

“Gaara,” Fuu says in a deeply disturbed loud whisper. “That is not your mom.”

“Can- can I look at your seal???” Naruto asks, equally disturbed and slightly hysterical. “It sounds broken??? I think I can help.”

He turns to Fuu just as quickly. “And how did you figure out your bijuu’s name was Chomei? Like. Do you guys talk? Have slumber parties? Wait are you guys...do you guys get along??”

“Oh boy,” Fuu says. “There is a lot of information we jinchuuriki should be sharing, huh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Sasuke takes Team Taka from those hideouts and forms his own team??? Maybe he becomes a permanent member of Team Jinchuuriki??? (but not before Sasuke and Naruto get into a yelling match their first conversation, Naruto saying 'YOU CAN'T JOIN TEAM JINCHUURIKI BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT ONE' and Sasuke grabbing Itachi and Kakashi like 'FINE. WE'RE GOING OUR OWN WAY. TEAM SHARINGAN.' 
> 
> IDK, but I kind of want to tackle Amegakure next - with Yahiko/Konan/Nagato as their next clients.
> 
> Let me know if there's a job/episode you want to see adapted or a Narutoverse Problem that you want see rectified lol


End file.
